


Henry Peglar and the Quest for the Lost Civilization

by bluebacchus



Series: Halloween Terrorfest 2019 [3]
Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: ADVENTURE!, Alternate Universe - 1920s, Archaeology, Body Horror, Intrigue!, Multi, VERY LOOSE references to colonial Brazilian mythology, scary bird creatures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2020-12-31 16:50:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21149000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebacchus/pseuds/bluebacchus
Summary: The year is 1922 and Henry Peglar, adventurer for hire, embarks on a quest to find the lost temple of [REDACTED]. Accompanied only by a scholar, an archaeologist, two physicians and some guy who insists everyone call him ‘Hickey’, what will Henry find in the deep jungles of [REDACTED]?Written for days 5 (you found me beautiful once) and 12 (all work and no play) of Halloween Terrorfest





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I love The Mummy (1999) so much that I did this two part Halloween fic inspired by it. For context, this is set in 1922 in the post-war era and the trauma of the First World War has not yet subsided...

They split off from the main expedition when it became clear to the six of them that the Bembridge scholars had sent them to find The Book with the biggest bunch of idiots to ever roam the earth.

Harry Peglar didn’t know he got lucky enough to be included in the group. He wasn’t a doctor, not like Dr. Stanley or Dr. MacDonald, nor was he an archaeologist like Dr. Gibson or the man who insisted everyone call him “Hickey”. He wasn’t even a scholar like Dr. Bridgens who, despite being the oldest expedition member, kept pace with Harry at the front of the group, beguiling him with facts about the Etruscans or the Mayans or the Romans. In turn, Harry would tell him stories of past expeditions. He described as accurately as he could remember the smell of the spice markets in Istanbul, the feel of his nose hairs freezing in northern Russia and how he missed the entire war due to being quarantined with Blackwater on the west coast of Africa.

“You’re a splendid storyteller, Mr. Peglar,” John said during one long day of walking. They were sitting on their packs, afraid to seat themselves on the jungle floor lest some undiscovered venomous creature disturb them.

“I’m only telling you what happened,” Harry said, suddenly shy under the other man’s praise.

“You should write a book. It would be up there with the greats, I’m sure.”

“I’m not much of a writer, I’m afraid,” Harry said. “Not much of a reader either, though I’m certain it’s akin to blasphemy to tell you that.”

Mr. Bridgens tapped his lip in mocking thoughtfulness. “Great stories,” he said slowly, “are only great if they are enjoyed.”

“Do you enjoy my stories, Mr. Bridgens?”

“Yes,” he said. “Very much so.”

* * *

“So, what are you then?” Hickey asked when they stopped to camp for the night. “You’re not an archaeologist. You’re not a doctor. You’re not even a digger. Why’re you here in the first place?”

“The man doesn’t have to justify his existence to you, you pest,” Dr. Stanley shouted from is tent.

“I told you, doctor. Call me Mr. Hickey.”

“I’d rather not.”

Doctor MacDonald smiled apologetically at Mr. Hickey and went to go give the other doctor a square of chocolate. It was the only thing that could cheer him up, if only marginally.

“I suppose I’m an adventurer,” Harry said. “I enjoy going places and seeing things. And meeting people,” he added, hoping his glance at Mr. Bridgens wasn’t obvious. It was, if Hickey’s lecherous grin was anything to go by.

“I’ll bet,” he said, leaning forward towards the campfire. “Me? I just like plundering deep holes.”

Dr. Gibson choked on his tea.

“How close are we, Mr. Bridgens?” Dr. MacDonald asked. He returned from Stanley’s tent sans chocolate, so Harry could only help the surly doctor had eaten his feelings successfully and wouldn’t burn their entire camp down in a fit of melancholy.

“Two more days of walking due north should get us there, according to the ancients.”

“And what, pray tell, will we find when we get to the mythical ‘there’?” Hickey’s eyes were shining dangerously. “Treasure? A temple filled with death traps? Or a bunch of old stones in a pile that you’ll insist have ‘cultural value’?”

Dr. Gibson rolled his eyes. “Honestly, Cornelius, why are you even here?”

Hickey grinned mischievously and he slid a hand onto Gibson’s knee. “Warm weather, tropical flowers, piña coladas… I thought you were asking me on a date, Billy. You said you found me beautiful, once… little did I know I’d be stuck on an eternal hike with a bunch of otherwise unappealing men.”

“Well,” Mr. Bridgens said, “I’m here to find The Book. Find it, read it, and discover something new. I also can’t agree with you on the company, I’m afraid.”

Harry could swear Mr. Bridgens’ eyes had flicked over to him. He hoped they did.

They sat in relative silence as the dark set in around them. Even Stanley emerged from his tent to watch the sun set over the canopy of trees before crawling back into his sleeping bag, grumbling about malaria.

When the rest of them decided to retire for the night, Gibson caught Harry by the arm.

“Can you switch tents with Mr. Hickey tonight?”

Harry stared at him in disbelief. “Hickey?”

Gibson pulled a gold ring on a chain out from under his shirt. “It’s complicated, Mr. Peglar. We’ve sorted out some problems.”

“He’s a former enemy spy who sold out your unit and caused the deaths of everyone you served with.”

“Things were complicated during the war.”

Peglar pulled Gibson into a one armed hug. “Just take care of yourself, Billy. You were never good at that in school.”

Gibson pulled away first. “The war changed everything, Peglar. Except you.”

“I’ll stay with Dr. Bridgens tonight,” Harry said. He knew what his old friend was going to say next and he didn’t want to hear it. Gibson ignored him; he stayed to listen anyways.

“Although I don’t know what I would expect from someone who hid on an island the whole time while his friends were dying by the dozen.”

* * *

Dr. Bridgens was reading by the dim light of the lantern when Harry crawled into his tent.

“Oh, Mr. Peglar! I believe your tent is the next one over,” he said, closing the book on a finger to mark his place.

“Dr. Gibson wanted to trade places.”

The older man frowned, thick eyebrows knitting together in a show of concern. “I hope I haven’t offended-“

“He and Mr. Hickey have… history,” Harry said, unwilling to divulge any more information than he had to. He’d rather not have to explain his and Gibson’s friendship, which was based mostly around mutual fumblings in the janitor’s closet at school.

“In that case,” Dr. Bridgens motioned to the sleeping bag next to his, “I was just reading up on the lost civilization we’re hoping to find.”

Harry dropped his pack, took off his shoes, and crawled onto the soft blankets next to the scholar, collapsing on his belly and then rolling on his side so he could watch the man as he continued to read, this time aloud.

He had a nice voice, Harry thought. It was rich and deep with an accent that betrayed his learned background to his upbringing.

“A highly spiritual community, they erected temples within the lush density of the jungle, hidden from any who might stumble across them. Little is known about the gods the temples were built for,” Dr. Bridgens read.

“But not for long, right Doctor?” Harry smiled, admiring the slope of the man’s jaw and the way his heat created a soft wave in his grey hair.

“We can only hope. And please,” he added, “call me John.”

“John,” Harry whispered. “Then please, call me Henry.”

“I thought you preferred Harry?”

Harry smiled, suddenly sleepy from the long day of walking and content enough to fall asleep without wondering if Mr. Hickey was going to stab him in his sleep with a pointy stick (a constant worry, considering the man’s fondness for pointy things).

“Henry sounds nice in your voice,” he said without thinking, stretching out and then sliding in between the blankets.

“Goodnight, Henry,” John said, closing his book and extinguishing the lantern. In the safety of darkness, Harry stretched out a hand. It met John’s thigh, and he could feel the other man freeze under his touch. His eyes had finally adjusted to the darkness, and when he said,

“Goodnight, John,” he could see John smile before he covered Harry’s hand with his own.

* * *

They found the temple after another eleven hours of walking, two hours of doubling back, and another hour of huddling under a canopy as rain pounded against the thick covering of treetops, hurling branches, fruits, and a particularly ornery monkey down over their heads.

“Remind me again why I signed up for this suicidal expedition,” Stanley murmured.

MacDonald nudged him with a hip, both hands in use holding the tarp over his head. “I believe you said you needed to get away from your private practice because, and I quote, ‘All my patients are clowns’. And perhaps the company was also enticing.” He smiled at the other physician, whose exasperated look did not budge.

“It was meant to be a rhetoric question, you dunce.”

“Oh, get a _room_, you two,” Hickey said, before standing on his tiptoes and licking Dr. Gibson’s cheek.

Gibson flinched away, causing Hickey to lose his balance and tumble backwards into Dr. Bridgens, who dropped the tarp. On instinct, Harry reached out for John’s portion of the tarp, dropping his own edge over his head and falling forward into John. John, with Harry’s weight spread over his back, pitched forward _back _into Hickey, who grabbed at Gibson’s legs, causing him to slip in the mud and headbutt MacDonald’s stomach. MacDonald doubled over and slipped on the same patch of mud that Gibson had, falling sideways into Stanley, knocking him over and landing with his head in his lap as the waterproof canopy, heavy with the collateral damage of the storm, slapped against Stanley’s face and knocked him over, flat on his back.

Once he extricated himself from the tarp, Stanley glared at MacDonald.

“I’m still surrounded by clowns.”

* * *

After the rain cleared, the fog set in, and that was how they found the temple. Dr. Bridgens was frowning at the map while Hickey sat on a felled tree, filing his nails with a knife. MacDonald was hopelessly trying to dry Stanley’s shirt with a sodden towel while the man wearing it pursed his lips and stared into the middle distance. Harry looked at Gibson who looked at Hickey, who licked his lips and nodded towards the trees, and Harry turned around, refusing to witness his old friend’s poor choice in men.

That’s when he saw it. Rising out of the fog, a tall stone building loomed menacingly over them. It was close- less than a kilometre away- and Harry blinked. He had seen mirages before, but nothing like this.

“John,” he said, eyes transfixed on the glittering stones decorating the archway at the front of the temple.

“One moment, Henry,” John said, studying the map with a magnifying glass in his hand.

“John, you need to see this.”

A gust of wind blew across the clearing they were in. It was the first wind they had felt since they entered the jungle- even the wind could not penetrate the densely packed trees.

The wind sounded like a song, and Harry knew he needed to enter that temple, with or without the rest of his group.

Still, he made one last effort. “John, _look!”_

Dr. Bridgens finally looked up at Harry, then followed his line of sight to the brown stone ziggurat, shining despite the lack of sunlight on the jungle floor.

“_Oh,_” John said, eyes also fixed on the structure, and Harry grabbed his arm and they began to run towards it.

* * *

Camping inside the ziggurat felt wrong, but another storm rolled in over the course of their exploration and Stanley threatened to light them all on fire if they made him leave the structure with its remarkably in-tact roof. Hickey set up a tent anyways on the stone floor.

“Gonna fuck Billy tonight,” he said when MacDonald asked him why he was bothering with a tent, still sodden from the night before.

MacDonald didn’t react aside from a shake of his head and a shrug of his shoulders.

“Set it up over in the antechamber, then. I don’t want to know what you sound like when you go off, Mr. Hickey.”

“I’m a joy to listen to, Doctor,” he said, before dragging a noticeably non-reluctant Billy Gibson into his tent.

Harry and John were crowded in a corner against a piece of polished silver- an ancient mirror. It reflected the light from the lantern, illuminating the heavy book Harry had found inside the base of a terrifying statue of an eyeless bird, its beak parted to show rows and rows of razor sharp teeth.

John was reading it, tracing his fingers delicately over the ink that marked the pages.

“How old is it?” Harry asked. “What language is it? What does it say?”

John laughed. “Slow down, Henry. We’ve only just found it.”

Harry grinned and leaned his head on John’s shoulder to examine the symbols, meaningless to him, but still beautiful. He almost missed John’s satisfied hum as Harry’s beard scratched over his open collar. If he had, things might have turned out differently.

“John,” Harry whispered. “I want…” he trailed off, too shy to ask for what he really wanted. “I want you to read to me.”

John nodded, and he began to read.

* * *

Somewhere in London, James Fitzjames, monster hunter extraordinaire, woke up in a cold sweat.

“Oh, _fuck,”_ he said, startling H.T.D. Le Vesconte, his partner in all manners of things, awake.

“Wha’zzt?” Dundy mumbled, face smashed against the pillow. “Izzit another mummy?”

Fitzjames stumbled to the armoire, digging behind his and Dundy’s socks to find the muiraquitã, the only relic left to him from his birth mother. The stone, usually the darkest of greens, emitted an amber glow.

“Someone read the book.”

Dundy sat up, hair resembling that of a prematurely grey shih tzu. “Oh _fuck._”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big ol' body horror warning on this one, lads

“It’s beautiful,” Harry said. “It sounds like poetry.”

“It may well be, Henry. I’m afraid my translation doesn’t do it justice.”

“No,” Harry said. Feeling bold, he reached forward to push Dr. Bridgens’s hair from where it fell across his forehead. “It’s perfect. You’re perfect.”

John closed his eyes and leaned into the young adventurer’s touch. There was no mistaking his want, not with the way his fingers stroked John’s cheek. Still, it was Harry who leaned forward and pressed his lips softly against John’s.

“Okay?” he asked, after pulling away.

“Yes,” John said, reaching for Harry again.

* * *

Dundy stole his tiny bag of airplane pretzels when he was in the toilet and James was grumpy.

“Cheer up, old chap,” Dundy said, clapping James on the shoulder. James shrugged it off and crossed his arms, pouting out the window of the tiny biplane that was taking them towards the jungle. The amulet grew brighter and brighter as they drew closer.

“You know I love those pretzels, Dundy,” James said, still refusing to make eye contact.

“You could still have a taste, you know,” he offered, wiggling his eyebrows lecherously and leaning in to kiss James.

James pushed him away, and Dundy settled for mouthing at his neck. James went weak with a single nibble at the muscle that ran down into his shoulder. The family of five sitting near them looked positively scandalized when Dundy bit down and James moaned, arms reaching up to wrap around the other man’s head.

“Toilet?”

“Always a romantic, Dundy.”

* * *

They were making out like horny teenagers against the base of the scary eyeless bird statue when the floor beneath them cracked. Harry couldn’t hear the crack over the blood pounding in his ears as Dr. Bridgens licked softly at his lower lip, but John pulled away and looked around, trying to find the source of the noise.

The crack ran from the base of the statue out of the room, back to the large centre room of the temple near where Hickey’s Sex Tent was set up and where Stanley sat against a shattered pillar, tossing rocks of increasing size onto the top of the tent. MacDonald sat near the entrance archway reading a book by the light of his lantern.

It was Stanley who was the first to notice the crack.

“Oh God, what now?“ he said before the earth opened up and swallowed him into the gaping cavern that opened where he had been sitting just a moment before.

* * *

When Gibson and Harry reached the bottom of the long rope ladder, they found Stanley miraculously unhurt. He was even more miserable than usual and covered in a thick grey dust, but he was alive and all his limbs were intact.

While Harry checked over their doctor, Gibson couldn’t help but glance around, shocked to find that they were not in a simple hole in the ground, but in an underground chamber. There were etchings on the walls that he couldn’t make out in the darkness. Something was unsettling about the place. There was a sharp smell to it, like vinegar mixed with blood and it made Gibson want to climb the ladder and run as far away as he could get. But he was an archaeologist, and he knew that curiosity would bring him back once they got Stanley back to the surface.

“C’mon, Dr. Stanley,” Harry said, offering a hand to help the doctor to his feet. Stanley glared, and struggled to his feet himself.

“My ribs feel like they’re on fire,” he grumbled, shaking off help from the two young men and starting to climb the unstable ladder by himself. Harry followed behind, with Gibson glancing around once more before pulling himself up after Peglar. He could have sworn he saw something move in the darkness.

Hickey was waiting for them at the top. He offered a hand to Stanley in a gesture of unexpected kindness, which Stanley carefully headbutted away. He pulled himself over the edge of the crevice and collapsed on his belly, coughing and hacking up all the dust he had swallowed from the pit.

“All work and no play makes Stanley a dull boy,” Hickey smirked.

Stanley looked up and glared at him, but was overtaken by another coughing fit, this one more violent.

He doubled over, coughing and retching and then reached into his mouth and pulled out a single sodden grey feather.

* * *

The feather he had coughed up still felt like it was lodged in his throat. Stanley coughed and coughed, but the tickle in the back of his throat refused to budge. Grumbling, he rolled over and buried his face in Alex’s neck. He had only admitted it once before, but he cared deeply for his fellow physician. Alex, in response, pulled Stanley’s arm over him like a blanket, fingers tangling together over Alex’s steady heartbeat.

* * *

Stanley slept through the sunrise.

“Maybe the fall scared the misery right outta him,” Hickey suggested over a breakfast of beef jerky and canned peaches. Getting no response, he turned his attention to Bridgens and Peglar, sitting hip to hip on a block of stone that once must have held a statue similar to the scary eyeless bird.

“Looks like it wasn’t just me that got some action last night, hey Granddad?”

“Lay off, you... you...” Harry struggled to find a word mean enough to describe Hickey. “You _devious seducer,_” he said. John just smiled and shook his head and Hickey reeled backwards, clutching at his chest in mock pain.

“How dare you! If anything, Billy seduced _me._”

Dr. MacDonald looked around. “Where did Billy get off to this morning?”

Before Hickey could make a crude joke about getting Billy off, John pointed towards the crevice that Stanley fell into. “We set up the rope ladder again. He wanted to take a look.”

Harry walked over to the edge of the pit and called down to Gibson. His voice echoed down into the hollow chamber.

“I’m coming up,” Gibson called from the depths. Minutes later, he ascended the ladder with his archaeologist’s pack strapped across his chest. He paused at the edge of the pit, gladly accepting Harry’s canteen from which he drank deeply.

“I found something,” he said, and that was when Stanley started screaming.

“I can’t see,” the doctor moaned, pulling himself to his feet and stumbling towards them with his hands clawing at his eyes. MacDonald caught him from behind, holding his struggling form in place and pulling his hands away from his face.

“Dr. Bridgens, could you examine his eyes, please? I’ll keep him still.”

But Bridgens was frozen in place, because when MacDonald pulled Stanley’s hands from his face, there were only eight long scratches covering the skin where his eyes were supposed to be.

All of them, even Hickey, let out a surprised yell as Stanley continued to moan and struggle against MacDonald’s hold.

“Let go of me!” Stanley yelled, before starting to cough. He fell to his knees, fingers scraping at the stone floor as he continued to cough, a deep, hacking noise interspersed with gagging, retching sounds.

Bridgens dared to get closer, bending down to look into Stanley’s mouth the next time he doubled over like he was about to vomit.

“There’s something in his mouth,” John said, but before MacDonald could hold him down, a sharp black beak pushed its way out from between Stanley’s lips.

“Oh, fuck,” Gibson said, “fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.”

Hickey watched the horrifying transformation in front of him with a detached fascination. “Interesting,” he said, while Gibson clung to his arm.

Harry was frozen to the spot, eyes glued to Stanley as he broke free from MacDonald’s hold and writhed around on the ground. Then, he went limp, and the black beak opened, wider and wider until it wrapped itself around Stanley’s head and slowly, slowly began to turn him inside out.

The remaining men screamed. They pushed at each other to get past Stanley and in the chaos, failed to notice a dashing, handsome man with a rifle before running headlong in him.

Four gunshots and a bout of machine gun fire rang out from inside the temple, and then a grey-haired man emerged with three guns strapped to his chest, a rifle slung over his shoulder, and what looked like a military-issued Maxim gun in his hands.

“Alright, lads?” he said, tossing the machine gun to the side and pulling a crumbly biscuit out of his back pocket.

* * *

James Fitzjames, Monster Hunter Extraordinaire lit their campfire with a match stored within a curl of his perfectly coiffed hair.

“How did you do that?” Hickey asked. He seemed interested for the first time on the expedition.

“Do what? Light the fire?” James asked.

Hickey rolled his eyes. “Keep your hair like that in the jungle.”

“Ah,” James said. “Leave-in conditioner.”

Harry, John, Hickey, Gibson and MacDonald all looked at each other in confusion.

“It’ll catch on eventually,” James said.

Dundy, introduced as “James’s partner in all manner of things” nodded wisely. Each of the other men had a copy of his business card tucked in their packs.

_Henry Thomas Dundas Le Vesconte_

_James Fitzjames’s Partner (in all manner of things)_

_We charge by the bullet_

it read.

“So, what exactly do you two do?” Harry asked.

“We kill monsters,” they said at the same time.

“And one of you dunderheads read from the book!” Le Vesconte said with far too much enthusiasm.

Bridgens raised a hand. “My apologies, sirs. I was excited.”

Fitzjames nodded in sympathy, but Le Vesconte was turning a strange purple colour.

“Excited is what you get when James puts on a dress and does a striptease! What you did was a catastrophe! Do you know what you unleashed, Mr. Bridgens?”

“It’s _Doctor _Bridgens,” Harry said angrily.

“It’s fine,” Fitzjames said. “It’s just an Anhanguera.”

“A what?” MacDonald asked.

“It’s a kind of… a Devil creature,” Gibson answered quietly. He was still pale and shaking when he pulled out a small carved statue of the eyeless bird. “I found this in the crevice. Where Stanley fell.”

They were all silent for a moment. No one, not even the so-called “monster hunters extraordinaire” wanted to re-enter the temple where Stanley’s half-inside-out body lay.

“Is that going to happen to the rest of us?” Hickey asked.

Dundy cocked one of his many guns. “Not if we can help it. Now, lads,” he said, tossing a rifle over to Harry, “who’s ready to go duck hunting?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be continued? 
> 
> (Let me know if there's interest and rattle some ideas around with me on tumblr or discord)

**Author's Note:**

> TO BE CONTINUED...


End file.
